ABSTRACT
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis(IPF), as one of the chronic and complex diseases, is with high incidence and mortality rate. It is also a difficult to treat disease in modern medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome differentiation and treatment embodies characteristics and advantages. In recent years, the collateral disease theory guiding the prevention and treatment of the chronic and complex diseases has become a hot point and frontier in medical research, and achieved certain effects. This article is to summary the structures and functions of pulmonary collaterals based on the collateral disease theory. Combined with clinical manifestations of IPF, we put forward Fei-Re Luo-Y u as the fundamental role in the pathogenesis of IPF in its acute phase to lay the theoretical foundation to the further exploration of syndrome prevention and differentiation on IPF in its acute exacerbation.